I have the top comment on this thread, and nobody's paying me :)

I think people are talking about it here because it's been a popular topic on HN forever, and this movie brought it mainstream. It's "controversial" to tech people for a lot of reasons (diversity, "apology tour", etc). And it's also the first time a lot of our friends and family are talking about these issues.

[EDIT] I had the top comment... I've changed my mind, definitely a conspiracy!

I started that tread because I was genuinely interested in peoples opinions on the film, especially the ones connected to that industry. Looking back at the answers I got, there was remarkably few comments from the latter.